As electronic devices equipped with memory of a large capacity, e.g., personal computers and image processing apparatuses, have become widely available in these years, it is now possible to use a file of a large data amount, such as a file containing high-resolution images or a file containing multiple images.
As a technique for improving convenience of such a large-capacity file, a technique has been proposed that speeds up access to image data in a file that contains a number of images (see the Patent Literature (PTL 1) below). This technique provides within a single file an image data area in which pieces of image data are sequentially stored and an amount-of-characteristic data area in which characteristic information of each piece of image data is stored, and fast access to desired image data is possible by referencing the amount-of-characteristic data area.
By the way, when image processing, e.g., printing processing, is applied to a file in an image processing apparatus, all data in the file is usually printed. Thus, when printing processing is applied to a file that contains multiple files, all image data in the file will be printed.